Known in the art is a device for fixing a tube, such as a drain tube introduced into the patient's body, comprising a housing whose extending portion is made as a cap accomodating a pneumatic annular chamber which contacts and rests upon the patient's body in the intermediate area between the support surface and the tube. The cap and the annular chamber are provided with an opening into which the drain tube is introduced and is clamped therein while some medium, for instance, air under an excessive pressure is filling up the annular chamber. The support portion of the housing is essentially an annular cavity which is depressurized (is under vacuum) to provide for drawing-in of a portion of the skin integument over a circumference. The cap is secured to the patient's body by means of a sticky surface provided on the support portion of the housing, as well as by means of elastic belts (cf. French Patent No. 2,315,956; IPC: A 6I M 3I/00).
However, this device has a number of disadvantages. The support portions of the housing, employed in the device, may cause trauma of the skin integument due to its pressing-in or drawing-in by the support surface, which also results in skin irritation and formation of bedsores particularly during an extended application of the device.
Excretions in the form of sweat drops accumulating on the surface of contact of the support portion of the pneumatic annular chamber made of resin and the patient's body may also cause irritation of the skin integument.
Presence of the pneumatic annular chamber does not allow for a sanitary and hygienic treatment of the skin integument portion at the point of the drain tube introduction without removing the device, which is necessary when the tube is kept in the patient's body for a lengthy time period.
The pneumatic rubber chambers employed in the device complicate the design and the process of manufacture of the product.
Also known in the art is a device for fixing a tube, for example, a drain tube, a catheter, a trocar, etc. in the patient's body, comprising a housing secured to the patient's body and provided with a flexible annular base made as an elastic disk having a central opening.
The housing has an extending portion shaped as a tube which has a branch for inflation. The rubber parts of the housing are interconnected by a permanent joint.
Hermetically mounted inside the tube which is the extending portion of the housing is a resilient bushing the thickness of whose wall is much smaller than that of the wall of the outer tube. The central portion of the bushing is mounted freely, i.e. with some gap in the tube, thereby providing for an annular cavity communicated with the inflating branch. In the course of inflation the central portion of the bushing forms two projections that are disposed opposite each other, clamp and fix the surgical instrument placed into the central opening of the disk. The device is secured to the patient's body with the aid of an adhesive substance (cf. U.S. Pat. No. 2,898,917; NC: 128-350).
The known device has the following disadvantages:
during use of the device there is possible an accidental displacement of the tube while the patient is asleep or as a result of his movement, which may cause pain caused by traumatizing of walls of the cavity by the displaced tube;
strong irritation and damage of the skin integument, which, in its turn, causes strong pain, may take place during an extended contact (for 2-3 months) between the support portion of the housing and the skin integument;
the design of the support portion of the housing does not allow for a sanitary and hygienic treatment of the skin integument at the point of introduction of the tube without removing the device, which is necessary when the tube is kept in the patient's body for a lengthy time period.
Besides, connection of the structure separate parts made of rubber into an integral part is a labour-consuming process.